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 An Obama presidency, that is. Director/actor/hard-core politico Spike Lee talks to author/blogger/television pundit Keli Goff about Barack Obama.
By Keli Goff
Illustrations by Alex Ostroy
Many directors would love to believe that their films leave a lasting impact on the lives of the people who see them. Only the most ambitious would dare to think that their movies have actually altered the course of history. But Spike Lee knows for sure that at least one of his has.
A few years ago at a fund-raiser on Martha’s Vineyard, an elected official approached Lee and asked to have a word. He proceeded to thank Lee for playing matchmaker for him and his wife. Lee, puzzled, and in his own words, “embarrassed,” asked, “How’d I do that?” The politician informed him that for their very first date, he had taken his future wife to see Lee’s Do the Right Thing.
“Well, I’m glad the movie turned out good,” Lee said, “or you two might not be together.”
And considering that some media outlets have called Michelle Obama Barack’s secret weapon, we might not be looking at the possibility of electing the first African-American president of the United States.
Lee still laughs at the memory of that evening when he first met Barack Obama, the man he calls a visionary and whose candidacy he’s now supporting. Though he says, at that moment, he never imagined that he was speaking with perhaps the future president of the United States, he now can’t imagine the future of our country without a Barack Obama presidency.
Here, Lee gives a no-holds-barred interview on everything from the political—Obama’s unlikely candidacy, the Clintons and the “race card,” black business and political leaders who support Hillary Clinton—to his new film, Miracle at St. Anna, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of Do the Right Thing. The one topic he would not explore is the possibility that Barack Obama may not reach the Oval Office. Lee politely declined to entertain the thought with a simple, “Ms. Goff, I cannot allow myself to think like that. I’m sorry.”
Keli Goff: How would you describe your politics?
Spike Lee: If you look at my views, I would be considered a liberal. I’m a registered Democrat. In the last presidential elections, I voted against Bush, and I voted for Clinton twice—Bill Clinton—but that’s where it ends, with him. I have no problem with a woman being president, just not this particular woman.
Keli: Why is that?
Spike: As I said in an article in New York magazine, both of [the Clintons] would lie on a stack of Bibles and sleep well doing it. You know who Kurosawa is?
Keli: The film?
Spike: The director. Akira Kurosawa. He had a film called The Bad Sleep Well.
Keli: Was there anything in this primary that soured you on the Clintons?
Spike: What President Clinton did in South Carolina…[Hillary’s] bold-faced lies about Bosnia… There have been various times when she just flip-flopped. She and all the other Democratic candidates agreed that Florida and Michigan should not be counted, and she didn’t protest because she thought she had the motherf--ker wrapped up. But as soon as the sh-- didn’t turn out that way, now “the citizens of Florida and Michigan are being deprived of their right to vote.” She and her husband thought that Obama was some rinky-dink rooty-poop brother from nowhere who was not going to be a serious foe, but he has. He’s been kicking them in the ass from the get-go.
And another thing—this is what Bill Clinton said: “It’s more revolutionary for a woman to get elected than a black male.” I don’t agree with that. I know that women have gone through tough stuff. But ain’t no white woman went through 400 years of slavery.
(Continued in the summer ’08 issue of UPTOWN)
Click here to read more about Obama and the presidential race.
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